Indulgence and Contingency
by Alithea
Summary: Eda has an idea she wants to work out. Revy needs a distraction. F/F content.


**Title: Indulgence and Contingency**  
**Rating: R for language and adult concepts**  
**Characters are not mine I am just borrowing.**  
**F/F content.**  
**A/N: In an attempt to be over indulgent I wrote this. It's not indulgent, or at least it isn't to me. I'm just happy I wrote something. **

Eda was good at being someone that she really wasn't. The act, for her, had come down to trading refinement for vulgarity, tailored suits and silk stockings for a nun's habit or that too short jean skirt and pink "Just Do It" tank top that left nothing to the imagination. She made her language rougher, and hid that bright blue spark that lingered in her eyes behind pink tinted sunglasses. The spark, that look in her eyes, could give her away for what she really was and show her as a chess master instead of the pawn she needed to pretend to be in order to stay alive.

Only one person knew her true identity, and she often wondered if the smarter bosses in Roanapur have made guesses. If they had then they didn't mind her being there, because Chang and Balalaika weren't fools. They knew how to move pieces on the board. If they knew she was CIA she was only alive because they wanted her to play along. She supposed it made a sort of sense, and those two were holding secrets of their own. They seemed to be after something that didn't have much to do with being a gangster. She tried not to make too many guesses about their actual reasons. Guesses were sloppy and void of facts. Too much guess work could get her killed.

There was a lot that could get her killed.

Eda's mind worked like a trap and she spent her evenings alone and in confines of her room unless there was a situation that called for her attention. She would go and have drinks at the Yellow Flag and verbally spar against Revy for a measure of self indulgent pleasure, but she could generally only indulge to a point. It made things easier, but left her wanting. She would often stay up to the early hours of the morning working plans about in her mind. She could wind a situation into knots that only she could unravel. It kept her sharp and focused.

Sometimes though she felt the pounding of the wicked city prying at her and she imagined how easy it would be to leave her role as an agent and absolutely annihilate and bring Roanapur under her thumb where she could crush it like a bug or bend it to her desires, keeping it like a pet. Those were the nights when she questioned if she had been in the city too long. Those were the nights when she would have to stare into her reflection and remind herself that, while she was not one of the good guys, she did want her team to win.

There were no good guys left. No white knights, only the black and the grey. The white knights she had encountered inevitably ended up being swallowed in the black, or turned red dying in the street.

Eda also had other thoughts she felt she needed to suppress, desires of a physical nature that she kept at bay so far as she could. If only because most of the things she wanted she wanted with people it would never be wise to approach. On those evenings she would try and temper her thoughts by imagining every detail of an encounter in her head. She would lay beneath the sheets with her hair down and void of any clothing. Her eyes fixed on the ceiling until she took a deep breath and then closed her eyes.

Her fantasies ranged from dominating and coercing Rock into letting her give him a blow job, and being tied up, bent over Balalaika's desk, and fucked with a rather impressive dildo (sometimes cigars were involved). But the fantasies were only ever that because Rock really wasn't her type at all, and Balalaika would, in all likelihood, just kill her.

There was another fantasy she had. She liked it best because it tempered things simply under a clichéd and overused mask. There were times when clichés became new again because no one suspected them anymore. One night she felt certain that she would allow herself the opportunity to make it a reality. If only because it had been something she had been thinking about for a very long time, since practically the day she had arrived in the city.

*****

The Yellow Flag was neutral territory, assassins and gangsters from all over the city went there to drink and have a good time, or to drink and pick up a new job. Revy went there to do her drinking, and sometimes she went there to do her drinking with other members of the Lagoon crew. That night she was there to drink, seriously drink, because she was tired and wanted to stop thinking about the mess that had been Japan. Eda had teased her relentlessly about it, and she was tired of trying to defend herself and her reasons.

She took a long sip from her glass and contended that she didn't exactly defend herself so much as she told Eda where she could stick her prying questions and overactive imagination. She blinked and filled her half empty glass with the bottle Bao had left on the bar. She sniffed and then chugged down the glass, steeling herself against the slight buzz that was starting its swim in her head. She wondered if she should just pick up a case of beer and finish her binge at her room.

Revy grinned and then emptied the remains of the bottle of rum into her glass. She stared into the amber liquid darkly and then cursed under her breath when she heard the overly confident and pleased intonations to her left as Eda took a seat next to her at the bar.

"Where's Romeo?" Eda asked and motioned to Bao for a drink.

"No, fucking clue," Revy stated and gulped down her drink. She eyed Bao when he left an open bottle and a glass near Eda. He nodded at her and brought her a beer.

Eda grinned and poured herself a drink. "You're gonna end up puking in the gutters tonight."

"Eda, I swear to God," Revy began darkly, coldly, "I am not in the mood for your shit tonight. If you're gonna drink, then drink." She chugged the beer and slammed the glass on the bar. Her eyes were lidded and dark when Bao came around to her again. She waved him off and reached for her money.

"I'll get it," Eda said.

Revy perked at this and looked the woman over. "Why?"

The blonde shrugged. "I can be generous."

"Only when you want something in return," Revy stated swiftly. She waved down Bao and ordered herself another drink, something more expensive than Bacardi. "Eda's payin'," she said quickly and the man nodded. She turned back to the nun from the Rip Off Church and said, "So, what is it?"

"You're too paranoid, you know that?"

"I'm not paranoid enough." She grinned at the glass Bao set before her and took a plaintive sip. "That's so good," she muttered to herself.

Eda chuckled.

"What?"

"I never knew you had taste Two Hand."

*****

Rebecca was a street rat.

Revy was a fairly respected gunfighter.

Rebecca had been weak.

Revy was considerably stronger.

Rebecca was covered in the mud of the gutters.

Revy was covered in blood, sweat, and the smell of gunpowder.

Rebecca left the world of the living.

Revy had just come back from peering into that world, and hated that she missed parts of it, knowing there was no going back, knowing that she couldn't exist in that half-life that Rock was insisting on living.

Rebecca felt a stirring in her heart she wanted to deny.

Revy was tired of Rebecca trying to claw her way out of the ground she was buried in. She was tired of having to reconcile her past with her present. She knew the best way to keep the little girl in the ground, so she drank until she couldn't hear the pounding of Rebecca's fists against the lid of the coffin.

She laughed at her internal struggles. They were laughable in a city of darkness. They were childish and stupid in the world she was living in. She knew why they were driving up to the surface, and she knew that she had to do something besides drink to keep herself alive. She needed an outlet.

She sipped at her third glass of good rum and felt the swimming sensation of a buzz returning. She tilted her head and caught the wry smile on Eda's lips, and the spark of deviance in blue eyes as the blonde looked at her over the top of those damned pink tinted sunglasses. Was that some sort of challenge?

Revy and Rebecca hated games like that.

Revy slid off her barstool and waved at Bao. "I'm out of here," she said and added, "Thanks for the drinks, Eda."

She stalked out of the bar and started the walk home.

"Hey, Revy?"

She stopped and turned to face Eda. "What?"

Eda swaggered over to her and grinned. "What's the deal with you and Mr. Japanese?"

Revy huffed. "God damn it, Eda, why do you always have to bring that up?"

The smile she received was wolfish.

"You go ahead and knock yourself out then," Revy said coldly. "Make your move on him. Seriously, do whatever the fuck you want." She turned and started walking again.

"Rebecca you're much less attractive when you're defeated."

Revy stopped and blinked. She shook her head and stalked back over towards the blonde.

*****

When playing games things can often go wrong, in chess, for example, a clever move on the part of one's opponent can spoil a meticulously laid gambit. The trick was to have contingencies and even contingencies upon contingencies in order to win. Eda was falling back on one she had considered. Revy was in a rare mood that required a special type of manipulation. She was drinking too much and thinking too much, and the things she was drinking over and thinking about could probably be traced back to one source.

Eda let the young woman stare her down for a moment. Dark thoughts were rolling around in Revy's head, and her temper was easy to trigger in such states. Eda didn't want to trigger that tempter though. She wanted to trigger something akin to competition. She wanted to tug at a thought that Revy had never considered before. She lifted her glasses and rested them on the top of her head, arched an eyebrow.

Revy grabbed her by the wrist and said, "I need more to drink."

"Do you?"

"Just shut up and come on." She tugged at the blonde's wrist.

Eda chuckled, smiling at her victory.

Fantasies were scripted in one's head. Eda's never had much dialogue and generally never involved falling back on a contingency plan. It was okay that real life not be exactly the way the fantasy was. Unscripted, it made things far more amusing and unpredictable. This self indulgent tryst she was chasing was a risk to even consider, but it was paying off. Most of Eda's ventures did.

****

Eda was good at pretending to be what she was not. She had locked up almost everything there was that was real about her. In order to fulfill her want she was going to have to let something slip. It was a risk, but after a few more drinks it was becoming more and more worth it.

"You drink to forget," Eda said as she watched Revy greedily take the last of the bottle.

"Must we get philosophical," Revy said with a light slur. She shut her eyes for a moment and was aware of Eda's proximity to her lips. "I'm not doing this because I'm drunk," she stated almost soberly.

"Of course not."

She opened her eyes and grinned, "You're fucking evil, you know that?"

"No," Eda said calmly claiming Revy's lips. She pulled away and said, "I'll be fucking you."

"Dyke."

"Yup." She pulled Revy towards her and kissed her again with more force.

"If you're gentle with me I'll have to kill you."

Eda laughed and bit at Revy's neck. "Don't worry," she chuckled into the gunfighter's ear, "you aren't getting out of this without a mark." She shut her eyes and thought, iAnd neither am I./i

End.


End file.
